Free: Contests & Raffles.
Sounds good, and awesome to eat. Start preparing yourself now for their feed bill. Its crippling.
To reach maturity in 26 weeks be sure to feed premium feed and give the birds as much room as you can afford. You will never have the problem of too much room for birds. I would almost always recommend a farm purchase over a hatchery. If planning on chicks get your order in as soon as possible and try to pick delivery date that works best for you. Based on your post I assume you have done this before but if you have any questions feel free to PM me. If you like that little yellow fat layer that pheasants get supplement a little scratch to the birds the last month or so.Just FY,I I have raised a lot of "jumbo" pheasants and while they are certainly bigger than your regular manchurian or bluebacks I would be surprised if you see many over 5lbs. One real nice thing about raising them for meat is that jumbos are generally a lot more mild mannered than your typical ringneck, less aggressive and flighty. Enjoy .
What happens if you raise them awhile and they escape? Any legal issue?Carl
Go out and shoot your own pheasant